Armchair warlords and robot hordes

By Paul Marks

IT SOUNDS like every general’s dream&colon; technology that allows a nation to fight a war with little or no loss of life on its side. It is also a peace-seeking citizen’s nightmare. Without the politically embarrassing threat of soldiers returning home in flag-wrapped coffins, governments would find it far easier to commit to military action. The consequences for countries on the receiving end – and for world peace – would be immense.

This is not a fantasy scenario. Over the coming years, the world’s most powerful military machine, the US Department of Defense, aims to replace a large proportion of its armed vehicles and weaponry with robotised technologies. By 2010, a third of its “deep-strike” aircraft will be unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), according to a Congressional Research Service report issued in July (http&colon;//tinyurl.com/yafoht). In a further five years a similar proportion of the US army’s ground combat vehicles will be remote-controlled robots varying in size from supermarket carts to trucks. The US navy, too, will have fleets of uncrewed boats and submarines.

By 2015, the US aims to replace a third of its armed vehicles and weaponry with robotic vehicles

The US military is already using robots in various roles. In November 2002, for example, an armed UAV destroyed a car in Yemen carrying the suspected chief of Al-Qaida in that country, killing him and five others. In Iraq and Afghanistan, robots are proving highly successful in neutralising roadside bombs and other small-scale explosives.

This is only the start. One of the next steps is to give robotic ground vehicles the attack power of UAVs, arming them with weapons such as

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